Stolen Away

“No. But I am of the theory that Hauptmann’ll spill his guts before he goes to the chair. Only, as long as bleeding hearts like Hoffman keep the case open, and keep his false hopes up, Bruno’s not about to finger his accomplices.”

“Well, maybe we can find those ‘accomplices’ without his help. But Frank—my opinion is, Hauptmann’s a minor figure in the case at best, and probably a flat-out patsy.”

Wilson sighed. He shook his head wearily. “Out of respect to you, Nate, I’ll hear you out.”

“All right. Now in some instances, I can’t tell you how I’ve been made privy to information. You’ll have to view at least some of what I’m going to tell you the way you’d view a tip from a good informant.”

He accepted that with a nod.

“What I’d like to present is my scenario for how the kidnapping and the extortion may have happened. This isn’t the only way it could have played. There are several variant ways you could interpret the things I’ve learned; but I think I’ve put the puzzle together. I spent the weekend going over old field notes, working it out.”

He had to smile. “Nate Heller devotes his weekend to solving the case that has mystified the world for over four years. That was damn white of you.”

I grinned. “Okay—I deserve that. Anyway, my explanation, or theory if you will, is a hell of a lot more likely than the one Wilentz got Hauptmann convicted on.”

Wilson nodded again. “One thing I’ll grant you—it always bothered me that Wilentz in his opening statement to the jury said he was going to prove the child died dropping to the ground, fracturing its skull, when the ladder rung broke. Then in his closing argument, Wilentz stated flatly that Hauptmann bludgeoned the boy in his crib, with the chisel. Wilentz is lucky that blunder didn’t get the conviction overturned.”

“Especially,” I said, “since neither version of the child’s death is supported by any evidence. No impression of the child’s body in the soft ground below, from falling; and no blood or other matter splattered in the crib, from a bludgeoning.”

Wilson was nodding again, which made me feel better.

I began by telling him about Paul Wendel. He had never heard of Wendel, and wrote the name down on a notepad. I, of course, didn’t mention that Wendel was in Ellis Parker’s illegal custody—just that Parker was investigating Wendel.

“Paul Wendel concocts this plan to kidnap the baby,” I said, “and sells Capone on it. It’s too dangerous and loony a plan for Capone to share with Frank Nitti, who is comparatively conservative in such matters; and it’s unlikely something this wild would interest Luciano, Madden or any of the others.”

“Dutch Schultz might have been that crazy,” Wilson said.

I had to restrain myself from telling him that Nitti had said the same thing.

“But that’s a case in point,” I said. “Not so long ago, Schultz had his own crazy idea—kill Tom Dewey. And we both know how that wound up.”

When Dutch Schultz wanted to hit Dewey the star prosecutor, it was vetoed by Luciano, Meyer Lansky and the boys; when Schultz bridled, he got lead poisoning in a Newark restaurant.

“Now I’m not sure whether Capone or Wendel approaches them,” I said, “but Max Hassel and Max Greenberg are recruited to engineer the snatch. Why would they go along with such a thing? Probably because they, and possibly their boss Waxey Gordon, want to curry Capone’s favor. A beer war seems to be abrewing, shall we say, and the more powerful elements on the East Coast—Luciano, Schultz and so on—are in a position to crush the Hassel and Greenberg operation. It doesn’t hurt them to do a favor for Capone, and make some money at the same time. Besides, Hassel and Greenberg won’t get their hands dirty—they can dispatch some of their minor bootlegger, rumrunner minions to take the risks and provide the insulation.”

Wilson was listening intently.

“Let me interrupt myself to ask you a question, Frank—who was Capone’s most frequent contact on the East Coast in ’32?”

“Well, Frankie Yale was dead by this point,” Wilson said, thoughtfully. “Our intelligence back then indicated that the guy doing the Outfit’s courier work, and the general Capone contact man with East-Coast mobsters, was Ricca. Paul Ricca—the Waiter.”

“Right on the money, Mr. Wilson,” I said, with a smile. “Ricca is unfailingly loyal to Capone. If Capone wanted to launch something that Frank Nitti and Jake Guzik and the rest of the Outfit hierarchy would reject—and after debacles like the Jake Lingle murder and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, these business-oriented types are hardly likely to embrace kidnapping the goddamn Lindbergh baby—who would Capone go to? Who was ruthless enough, and loyal enough?”

“Ricca, of course,” Wilson said. Nodding. Going along with me for the ride.

I drove on. “I think Ricca may have enlisted Gaston Means to be the intermediary between the underworld and the upperworld. Con man, ex-government agent, Means was clever and connected with everybody from bootleggers to congressmen to high society.”